


nothing as precious as family

by Saraste



Series: A month of nwalin [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: (for plot reasons) - Freeform, (sorry), (there's a tag missing), Dark, Durin Family Angst, Erebor Reclaimed, Family, M/M, Nightmares, Post Battle of the Five Armies, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9169180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: Dwalin has nightmares. He's not the only one to wander the halls of Erebor at night.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy ficlet. You have been warned. This just demanded to be written. I don't even read these sorts of fics. This might... I don't want this to become a thing but this might become a thing.

He has his axes in hand, battle-fury roars in his veins, blood drips from the blades. It's crimson, so bright yet dark, his blades bathed in it. There's blood on his face. He has felled an enemy. But who? Blood pounds in his ears.

 

Suddenly, the din of battle has died away, there is no-one around him, all enemies have gone. But there is still blood dripping from his axes, drenching his beard, covering his hands. Hitting the ground with wet loud squelches. 

 

He looks down.

 

Wishes that he had not, when bile roses up his throat and he throws his axes aside, drops to his knees where russes braids are bathed in blood, where sparkling mischievous eyes are now staring lifeless up at the sky, where Dwalin's very own axes have rent flesh, muscle, bone. Stolen life. 

 

He gathers the broken body in his arms, cradling it close, hands that dealt death so gentle now, when it’s meaningless---

 

\--- he sits up, gasping and drenched in a cold sweat, looking down at his hands, needing to know if there's blood. But even his dark sight does not quite help him. He shivers. Glances at the body next to him, still slumbering in exhausted sleep,  _ needed _ sleep. Checks that his axes are indeed across the room, by the fireplace. With his nightmares it would be murder to keep them by the bedside.

 

He slips away from under the covers, does not have the right to be in the same bed with Nori, not right now. Not when there's--- 

 

Something small shifts and he has to turn away, he is a danger and cannot be trusted. Even if the last blood on his hands had not been of death. Yet similar enough to cast his mind back to Azanulbizar, to the Battle of the Five Armies, in which he had been unable to stop the blood of kith and kin from running out, of life being snuffed, stolen away by enemy blades.

 

His hands shake.

 

He wanders the halls, barefeet on good stone, stone humming with the life within the mountain settling his raging heart, calming his nightmare fuelled blood..

 

‘Shouldn't you be in bed?’ a familiar voice asks, making him flip around, sorrow still raw.

 

Kíli’s face is hollow, his eyes brittle and tired, his flame flickering. Some say he isn't long for this world, not with a look like that on his face, with the dark shadows across his features, with those haunted eyes of his which too rarely fill with mirth, if at all. Some say different, see the potential, a young prince forged strong by loss, who will follow his mother to the throne. Some see mirth returning, tempered by loss, brightened by the fleeting nature of life seen close, made more acute through loss. Dwalin sees a lost boy, cast adrift. ‘Couldn't sleep. Nightmare.‘

 

The lad is among the very scant few to whom Dwalin never lies to, now. In this too changed new world. In this kingdom which was paid by too much blood.

 

‘Same,’  Kíli admits, like Dwalin could not read it upon him. It's a miracle he sleeps at all, some nights, that he slept after the healers took their potions away, told him he needed to learn to do without. Leaving Dís to face a shadow of the son she saw away, when she returned to fanfare, to fill an empty throne Kíli had refused for her sake, for his own. ‘You should go back. Your family will be waiting.’

 

The way he says  _ family _ is like a blow to Dwalin. He cannot look at the lad and not think of the bright young prince, the golden prince, who should be here now. Who should not slumber in stone.

 

The lad grips his arm in a tight grip. ‘Go home, Dwalin,  _ don't waste a moment _ .’

 

Dwalin cannot answer, but does as the lad directs.  _ After  _ he's made sure someone is keeping the prince company. Queen Dís cannot lose all three she saw off from Ered Luin. Dwalin has to believe that Kíli is strong enough to endure his loss. Yet his nighttime wanderings… there is a shadow in him now. Dwalin leaves his young prince, their young prince, battle broken and half of what he’d been, in his mother’s charge, as she sleeps little enough, has her own dreams. He heads home with a heavy heart, to take Kíli’s direction to heart.

 

Their apartment seems silent, not lifeless but simply quiet, yet… Nori’s awake, nursing a pebble on his breast, hair mussed by sleep, Dwalin's beads in it catching the light of the solitary lit candle.

 

_ Nori and Dwalin’s pebble. _

 

‘You had another nightmare,’ is a statement, the tone neutral, with an undercurrent of tiredness.

 

Dwalin's heart swells to see Nori handling the wee thing in his arms with such ease. He sits down at the edge of the bed. Just looks. Lets go of his nightmare. ‘No need waking you up, you’ve earned your sleep…’

 

He hesitates, reaches, touches russet hair with his fingers. No blood. Cups a cheek. Warm. Feels a pulse under his hand. There. Feels wetness in his eyes. Gives in to that.

 

Warm hand on his head, back, patting and stroking. ‘It's alright to be scared of this,’ Nori tells him.

 

Dwalin prays to never have nightmares about the two souls now in the bed besides him, it had already been too close.He allows himself to fear. Vows to protect with his dying breath, keep safe those who he still can. Even if from himself, if it comes to that. For there is nothing as precious as family.

 


End file.
